5/12/16 NIMO Risk Management at CA IMT Meetings

Left to Right, NIMO LSC Zeph Cunningham,
Steve Parr and  NIMO SOF Tom Johnson

"Firefighter safety, and the safety of the public, is a core value and is intrinsic in all areas of wildland fire management." (www.nifc.gov ) Risk Management has been a key focus area for NIMO.  NIMO is working with others in the coordination,collaboration and development of the next iteration of Risk Management. 

 

The NIMO Risk Management Workgroup assisted with coordinating  an Interagency Risk Summit last December.  The goal of the Summit was to clarify and establish a collective course for incorporating risk management as an integral component of wildland fire management, both within the Forest Service and the greater wildland fire community.  It summarized existing science- based risk management definitions into a set of clear,relevant and understandable definitions.

The workgroup was  tasked to attend all of the National and GACC IMT Meetings and to share information about the Summit.   Zephaniah Cunningham,Tom Johnston and Kit Bailey presented the Interagency Risk Assessment matrix, Line of Duty Death (LODD) response, and Coordinated Response Protocol (CRP) to the eleven Incident Management Teams in Region 5 (California).  The information was well received and the question and answer session was lively. One of the “problems” facing IMT’s is how to get the risk levels (high, moderate, low), mitigations and the risk processes to the ground at the engine operator and crew person level.  It is critical that everyone has a conversation about risk before and during tactical operations.